Restore Relationships for the New Year

The end of the calendar year is an appropriate time to evaluate our beliefs and practices. It’s also an opportunity to consider our strained relationships and to utilize the skills of mediation to repair them.

One ancient practice illustrates the heart of mediation that is suitable to that effort. Several South Pacific islands including Hawaii, Samoa, and Tahiti have forgiveness practices. In Hawaii, the traditional ritual of restoration of good relationships among family members is known as ho’oponopono (not be confused with a New Age practice by the same name).

Traditionally, ho’oponopono was a family conference led by a respected senior member to restore harmonious relationships through a process that included prayer, a statement of the program, discussion, confession of responsibility or wrongdoing, determination of restitution when necessary, mutual forgiveness, and a formal release of the problem before a closing prayer and a shared meal. In the process, those involved reaffirm the spiritual and emotional ties of the family.

Conflict is perceived as an entanglement or blocked pathway in one’s system of obligations. A key to ho’oponopono is the recognition of the reciprocity of mutual duties everyone in the family have. Members are expected to cooperatively work through problems. Periods of silence are taken to reflect on the complexity of emotions and challenges.

Mediation skills that help restore our damaged relationships is certainly a positive way to begin a new year.